[Dixielandjazz] Leonard Feather (an encounter with Miles Davis)

Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:44:50 EST

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I have been asked to post a piece wherin I related an encounter with MIles=20
Davis that had some significance to me.  This was in a piece I wrote on=20
Leonard Feather, a prominent jazz critic years ago.

from   www.jazzinstituteofchicago.org     under jazzgram click on Commentary

Leonard Feather

by <A HREF=3D"mailto:JimDBB@aol.com">Jim Beebe</A>

[Ed. Lorraine Feather's article about her father, to which Beebe refers, has=
=20
been removed from this website at her request.]=20

I wrote this not only for myself but for so many musicians who are no longer=
=20
here and never had a forum to call Feather on his scurrilous writing.

Lorraine Feather's piece, "Life with Feather," cries out for correction and=20
comment. Her recollections of her father, jazz critic Leonard Feather, are=20
much fonder than those of most jazz musicians. Sadly, she carries forth the=20
same bitter prejudices and distorted history that were harbored so long by=20
her father.

Right off Lorraine tells us that the Esquire Jazz Polls (1940s) would=20
"typically honor Dixieland artists and ignore more modern sounds...." The=20
inference here is that Esquire rigged these Polls in favor of so called=20
"Dixieland" artists. That is until Leonard Feather came to the rescue with a=
=20
Critics Poll. Of course the "Critics" would know better than the average fan=
=20
and would vote for the "modern" artists. Just who these inferior "Dixieland"=
=20
artists were is never identified.

The truth is a wee bit different. Leonard Feather came here from England and=
 =20
wangled his way into a position of influence as a writer on the NY Jazz scen=
e=20
in the 1940s. As the newer, more modern jazz sounds and artists began to=20
emerge, Feather decreed that all pre-bebop musicians were hopelessly old-hat=
=20
and outdated. No matter what style or era they played within, they were now=20
lumped together as "Dixieland" musicians. Feather wasn't the only writer to=20
do this, but he was by far the most vicious. Many great musicians who now=20
most of us revere as legends Feather declared antiques.

This had devastating ramifications for many musicians, as younger fans picke=
d=20
up on this via the jazz magazines that Feather and the others wrote for, and=
=20
they would shun any but the latest be-bop musicians.=20

Art Hodes is a good example. He was then very active in New York and became=20
one of Feather's targets on his growing hit list. Hodes was also doing some=20
respectable writing which moved him notches higher on this list. In every=20
column or article, Feather would take nasty shots at Hodes...as corny,=20
outdated, etc.=20

Feather had also gained some influence with the jazz record companies. They=20
were afraid of him, afraid that he might shoot down their recordings or=20
artists in print. Lester Young had a contract to do a recording of blues=20
tunes for a particular record company and he wanted Art Hodes on piano for=20
this date. Art had worked a number of times with Lester and he was one of th=
e=20
great blues pianists, so this made perfect sense.

But Feather stepped in and told the record company not to use Hodes, he was=20
too old fashioned. Hodes was cut out of this date at a time when he=20
desparately needed the money=E2=80=94and the pleasure and artistic recogniti=
on of=20
recording with Pres.( Lester Young).  Art never forgot this vicious act and=20
in his later years he told of getting booked on a jazz cruise with Feather.=20
Art said that Feather acted as though none of the early nastiness ever=20
happened.

I was a young musician/fan getting out of high school, going to college and=20
into miltary service. I had fallen in love with earlier "classic" jazz style=
s=20
and musicians. This was the New Orleans jazz style known broadly as Dixielan=
d=20
jazz. Dixieland was an honorable term then which denoted the polyphonic=20
counterpoint ensemble style. Honorable, that is, until Leonard Feather=20
decided that it was an out-of-date, inferior, and corny.

I began reading the jazz publications and Feather was a predominant writer.=20
Almost every article or review was negative in tone and usually full of=20
contempt and vicious remarks about "Dixieland" or pre-bop musicians. But eve=
n=20
the modern musicians became targets of his poison pen.

I could not, for the life of me, figure out why he was constantly knocking=20
this wonderful music and these tremendous musicians. This was the wonderful=20
78 recording era and I had no pictures or anything to go by. I didn't know i=
f=20
these guys were young or old, white or black or whatever. And I didn't care.=
=20
All I knew was that I liked the music. I was aware of the modern sounds and=20
recordings but at that time I was not much interested in them.

The negativety that eminated from Feather and others was so fierce that I, a=
s=20
a young fan, imagined that the "Dixieland" and "Bebop" musicians must hate=20
each other. Oddly enough, the guy who straightened me out on this was Miles=20
Davis. Here is how that happened.

After a couple of years of college, the Korean war was on and I ended up in=20
the Marines and was stationed in San Francisco for a year. This was very=20
fortunate for me, as almost every great jazz musician in every style came=20
through. The Hangover Club had the leading traveling dixieland-traditional=20
groups and the Blackhawk booked the leading Mainstream-modern groups. I=20
bounced like a yo-yo between these two clubs...and others.

At one point Miles Davis was at the Blackhawk. Bob Scobey was having a=20
bi-weekly Sunday jazz session with guest artist at another club. I was=20
usually there and Scobey's sessions were in the=20
traditional-dixieland-mainstream bag. I walked in there one Sunday and Miles=
=20
Davis was the guest artist. I was stunned...I could not believe this because=
=20
in my mind these guys had to hate each other. Yet here was Miles who was ver=
y=20
congenial and joined right in. They did middle-of-the-road stuff that=20
everyone was comfortable with and they seemed to be having a good time=20
musically.=20

During a break I got up my nerve and went up to Miles. I stammered out=20
something to the effect that I couldn't believe that he was there playing=20
with Scobey as I had it in my mind from what I read that stylistically they=20
could never play together and they must dislike each other. Right off Miles=20
said, "You've been reading that asshole Leonard Feather, haven't you?" I=20
nodded and Miles neatly and briefly explained that the divisions in jazz wer=
e=20
artificial and promoted by writers like Feather.

He said that they were professional musicians and these divisions and=20
contempt for other styles did not exist among professionals, except with som=
e=20
of the younger ones. He explained briefly how the different jazz styles were=
=20
connected and interwoven.

This little exchange with Miles changed forever the way I looked at jazz and=
=20
music in general. I became a professional musician and made a rather loose=20
hobby of tracking Leonard Feather and his writing via Downbeat and other=20
publications.

Feather ran the Downbeat Blindfold Test for a number of years. Each month=20
would have a different guest, a name musician and Feather would play=20
recordings without telling who was on the recordings. The guest was to try=20
and guess who it was and make comments. Feather was quite sly and used this=20
forum to, of course, put down the "dixieland-classic" jazz musicians.

Jelly Roll Morton became one of his main targets and Feather made a ferociou=
s=20
effort to denigrate and discredit Morton. And he was slick in the way that h=
e=20
did it. He would have a modern artist as guest and play him one of Morton's=20
records...not one of Morton's better records but always one of his lesser=20
recordings. The idea was to elicit a negative comment...which he ususally=20
got...but not always.

Feather would also use this forum to try and pit musicians against each=20
other...to get them to make negative comments about each other. Here is an e
xample: Jack Teagarden was his guest and Jack hardly ever knocked anyone. Bu=
t=20
Feather got him to. He played Jack the worst recording that Bill Harrris eve=
r=20
did. Out of all the great recordings that Harris did, Feather picked this=20
one, done when he was drunk or sick, that should never have been released.=20
Feather relished revealing in print Teagarden's scathing remarks.=20

A few muscians did get in some payback. Muggsy Spanier slugged Feather in a=20
bar over some things that he had written and there were other and some quite=
=20
clever bits of revenge. Ralph Sutton always called him, Trafalgar Quill.=20
Sadly, Feather was quite universally despised by most jazz musicians.

I was in L.A. one summer after Feather became the jazz critic for the Los=20
Angeles Times. His reviews were almost always negative. Great musicians, man=
y=20
of whom are now legends, were cut down with nasty, vitriolic remarks. A few=20
years later I was with Art Hodes at a Disneyland Jazz event. In our group wa=
s=20
Doc Evans, Barney Bigard, Bob Cousins etc...there is no way that this was no=
t=20
a good group. Not to Feather, who didn't forget his old target, Art Hodes. I=
t=20
was sad to see him attack Art yet once again in the L.A. Times.

Feather was an amateur song writer and was forever trying to pressure jazz=20
artists into recording his songs. British jazz writer Steve Voce, last year=20
in a Jazz Journal article, wrote of an interview with Stan Kenton. Kenton=20
told how Feather tried to strong arm him into doing an album of his songs.=20
Stan said that Feather's songs were hopeless and he couldn't record them.=20
Stan Kenton related how he turned down Feather as diplomatically as he could=
=20
but ever after this he became one of Feather's principle targets with a=20
barrage of columns and reviews which attacked Stan, his band and his=20
recordings.

One could go on at some length about Feather's negative influence on the=20
American Jazz scene. Lorraine Feather sees her father as "less a critic per=20
se than a champion of the music he had fallen in love with as a young=20
Englishman." I wish that this was so but the truth is otherwise.=20

 =20
=20

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Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Language: en

<HTML>I have been asked to post=
 a piece wherin I related an encounter with MIles Davis that had some signif=
icance to me.&nbsp; This was in a piece I wrote on Leonard Feather, a promin=
ent jazz critic years ago. 
 
from&nbsp;&nbsp; www.jazzinstituteofchicago.org&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; unde=
r jazzgram click on Commentary 
 
Leonard Feather 
 
by <A HREF=3D"mailto:JimDBB@aol.com">Jim Beebe</A> 
 
[Ed. Lorraine Feather's article about her father, to which Beebe refers, has=
 been removed from this website at her request.] 
 
I wrote this not only for myself but for so many musicians who are no longer=
 here and never had a forum to call Feather on his scurrilous writing. 
 
Lorraine Feather's piece, "Life with Feather," cries out for correction and=20=
comment. Her recollections of her father, jazz critic Leonard Feather, are m=
uch fonder than those of most jazz musicians. Sadly, she carries forth the s=
ame bitter prejudices and distorted history that were harbored so long by he=
r father. 
 
Right off Lorraine tells us that the Esquire Jazz Polls (1940s) would "typic=
ally honor Dixieland artists and ignore more modern sounds...." The inferenc=
e here is that Esquire rigged these Polls in favor of so called "Dixieland"=20=
artists. That is until Leonard Feather came to the rescue with a Critics Pol=
l. Of course the "Critics" would know better than the average fan and would=20=
vote for the "modern" artists. Just who these inferior "Dixieland" artists w=
ere is never identified. 
 
The truth is a wee bit different. Leonard Feather came here from England and=
&nbsp; wangled his way into a position of influence as a writer on the NY Ja=
zz scene in the 1940s. As the newer, more modern jazz sounds and artists beg=
an to emerge, Feather decreed that all pre-bebop musicians were hopelessly o=
ld-hat and outdated. No matter what style or era they played within, they we=
re now lumped together as "Dixieland" musicians. Feather wasn't the only wri=
ter to do this, but he was by far the most vicious. Many great musicians who=
 now most of us revere as legends Feather declared antiques. 
 
This had devastating ramifications for many musicians, as younger fans picke=
d up on this via the jazz magazines that Feather and the others wrote for, a=
nd they would shun any but the latest be-bop musicians. 
 
Art Hodes is a good example. He was then very active in New York and became=20=
one of Feather's targets on his growing hit list. Hodes was also doing some=20=
respectable writing which moved him notches higher on this list. In every co=
lumn or article, Feather would take nasty shots at Hodes...as corny, outdate=
d, etc. 
 
Feather had also gained some influence with the jazz record companies. They=20=
were afraid of him, afraid that he might shoot down their recordings or arti=
sts in print. Lester Young had a contract to do a recording of blues tunes f=
or a particular record company and he wanted Art Hodes on piano for this dat=
e. Art had worked a number of times with Lester and he was one of the great=20=
blues pianists, so this made perfect sense. 
 
But Feather stepped in and told the record company not to use Hodes, he was=20=
too old fashioned. Hodes was cut out of this date at a time when he desparat=
ely needed the money=E2=80=94and the pleasure and artistic recognition of re=
cording with Pres.( Lester Young).&nbsp; Art never forgot this vicious act a=
nd in his later years he told of getting booked on a jazz cruise with Feathe=
r. Art said that Feather acted as though none of the early nastiness ever ha=
ppened. 
 
I was a young musician/fan getting out of high school, going to college and=20=
into miltary service. I had fallen in love with earlier "classic" jazz style=
s and musicians. This was the New Orleans jazz style known broadly as Dixiel=
and jazz. Dixieland was an honorable term then which denoted the polyphonic=20=
counterpoint ensemble style. Honorable, that is, until Leonard Feather decid=
ed that it was an out-of-date, inferior, and corny. 
 
I began reading the jazz publications and Feather was a predominant writer.=20=
Almost every article or review was negative in tone and usually full of cont=
empt and vicious remarks about "Dixieland" or pre-bop musicians. But even th=
e modern musicians became targets of his poison pen. 
 
I could not, for the life of me, figure out why he was constantly knocking t=
his wonderful music and these tremendous musicians. This was the wonderful 7=
8 recording era and I had no pictures or anything to go by. I didn't know if=
 these guys were young or old, white or black or whatever. And I didn't care=
. All I knew was that I liked the music. I was aware of the modern sounds an=
d recordings but at that time I was not much interested in them. 
 
The negativety that eminated from Feather and others was so fierce that I, a=
s a young fan, imagined that the "Dixieland" and "Bebop" musicians must hate=
 each other. Oddly enough, the guy who straightened me out on this was Miles=
 Davis. Here is how that happened. 
 
After a couple of years of college, the Korean war was on and I ended up in=20=
the Marines and was stationed in San Francisco for a year. This was very for=
tunate for me, as almost every great jazz musician in every style came throu=
gh. The Hangover Club had the leading traveling dixieland-traditional groups=
 and the Blackhawk booked the leading Mainstream-modern groups. I bounced li=
ke a yo-yo between these two clubs...and others. 
 
At one point Miles Davis was at the Blackhawk. Bob Scobey was having a bi-we=
ekly Sunday jazz session with guest artist at another club. I was usually th=
ere and Scobey's sessions were in the traditional-dixieland-mainstream bag.=20=
I walked in there one Sunday and Miles Davis was the guest artist. I was stu=
nned...I could not believe this because in my mind these guys had to hate ea=
ch other. Yet here was Miles who was very congenial and joined right in. The=
y did middle-of-the-road stuff that everyone was comfortable with and they s=
eemed to be having a good time musically. 
 
During a break I got up my nerve and went up to Miles. I stammered out somet=
hing to the effect that I couldn't believe that he was there playing with Sc=
obey as I had it in my mind from what I read that stylistically they could n=
ever play together and they must dislike each other. Right off Miles said, "=
You've been reading that asshole Leonard Feather, haven't you?" I nodded and=
 Miles neatly and briefly explained that the divisions in jazz were artifici=
al and promoted by writers like Feather. 
 
He said that they were professional musicians and these divisions and contem=
pt for other styles did not exist among professionals, except with some of t=
he younger ones. He explained briefly how the different jazz styles were con=
nected and interwoven. 
 
This little exchange with Miles changed forever the way I looked at jazz and=
 music in general. I became a professional musician and made a rather loose=20=
hobby of tracking Leonard Feather and his writing via Downbeat and other pub=
lications. 
 
Feather ran the Downbeat Blindfold Test for a number of years. Each month wo=
uld have a different guest, a name musician and Feather would play recording=
s without telling who was on the recordings. The guest was to try and guess=20=
who it was and make comments. Feather was quite sly and used this forum to,=20=
of course, put down the "dixieland-classic" jazz musicians. 
 
Jelly Roll Morton became one of his main targets and Feather made a ferociou=
s effort to denigrate and discredit Morton. And he was slick in the way that=
 he did it. He would have a modern artist as guest and play him one of Morto=
n's records...not one of Morton's better records but always one of his lesse=
r recordings. The idea was to elicit a negative comment...which he ususally=20=
got...but not always. 
 
Feather would also use this forum to try and pit musicians against each othe=
r...to get them to make negative comments about each other. Here is an examp=
le: Jack Teagarden was his guest and Jack hardly ever knocked anyone. But Fe=
ather got him to. He played Jack the worst recording that Bill Harrris ever=20=
did. Out of all the great recordings that Harris did, Feather picked this on=
e, done when he was drunk or sick, that should never have been released. Fea=
ther relished revealing in print Teagarden's scathing remarks. 
 
A few muscians did get in some payback. Muggsy Spanier slugged Feather in a=20=
bar over some things that he had written and there were other and some quite=
 clever bits of revenge. Ralph Sutton always called him, Trafalgar Quill. Sa=
dly, Feather was quite universally despised by most jazz musicians. 
 
I was in L.A. one summer after Feather became the jazz critic for the Los An=
geles Times. His reviews were almost always negative. Great musicians, many=20=
of whom are now legends, were cut down with nasty, vitriolic remarks. A few=20=
years later I was with Art Hodes at a Disneyland Jazz event. In our group wa=
s Doc Evans, Barney Bigard, Bob Cousins etc...there is no way that this was=20=
not a good group. Not to Feather, who didn't forget his old target, Art Hode=
s. It was sad to see him attack Art yet once again in the L.A. Times. 
 
Feather was an amateur song writer and was forever trying to pressure jazz a=
rtists into recording his songs. British jazz writer Steve Voce, last year i=
n a Jazz Journal article, wrote of an interview with Stan Kenton. Kenton tol=
d how Feather tried to strong arm him into doing an album of his songs. Stan=
 said that Feather's songs were hopeless and he couldn't record them. Stan K=
enton related how he turned down Feather as diplomatically as he could but e=
ver after this he became one of Feather's principle targets with a barrage o=
f columns and reviews which attacked Stan, his band and his recordings. 
 
One could go on at some length about Feather's negative influence on the Ame=
rican Jazz scene. Lorraine Feather sees her father as "less a critic per se=20=
than a champion of the music he had fallen in love with as a young Englishma=
n." I wish that this was so but the truth is otherwise. 
 
<IMG SRC=3D"http://jazzinstituteofchicago.org/images/dingbat-notes.gif" WID=
TH=3D"300" HEIGHT=3D"13" BORDER=3D"0"> 
 
&nbsp; 
 </HTML>

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